A Change of Engagement
by AMarguerite
Summary: Enjolras and Courfeyrac fence and become friends, at which point Courfeyrac attempts to get Enjolras into a frock coat. Slashy undertones warning.


Courfeyrac assumed en garde position and waited with barely concealed impatience while the fencing master corrected his hold on the blade by an infinitesimal amount.

"There you are, Monsieur de Courfeyrac, a slightly tighter grip on the blade! I have noticed you prefer a very nice, flowing style, very elegant of course, but your blade _can _be very easily knocked out of your hand. I recommend a _slightly _firmer grasp- yes, perfection itself! And _lunge- _good, good. _Lunge. _And again- and again. Ah, see Monsieur de Courfeyrac, how much more control over the blade you now possess? Excellent. Now, let me- ah! Monsieur Enjolras, are you engaged at present?"

Courfeyrac lifted his mask to see a lithe blond pulling on his glove and shaking his head.

"Excellent, excellent," said the fencing master, who had recently taken on a snuff merchant's son as a pupil and rediscovered both an addiction to snuff and hitherto unknown reserves of pleasantness. "Now, Monsieur de Courfeyrac, Monsieur Enjolras, to the end of the room please, this way- ah, ah, Monsieur Sorel, guard _up_, not quite so impetuous, if you please, Monsieur le vicomte, you may wish for a slightly higher guard against a six- yes, precisely. Excellent, excellent- ah, here we are!"

While they had carefully made their way from the undulating line of fencers, Courfeyrac had tried to take in his opponent. Enjolras held himself very upright and did not seem to notice anything around him, though he none-the-less managed to step out of the way when Monsieur Sorel managed to control his lunge and drive his opponent into Enjolras's path. Courfeyrac, who fancied himself extremely clever at taking accurate first impressions, decided that Enjolras was likely to be something of a defensive fencer, drawing the opponent in very calmly and then springing forward with a sudden attack. Courfeyrac, whose own style was admittedly flamboyant, scratched his hairline with the handle of his fencing foil. He was going to have to be on his guard- which he wasn't very good at- and would have to be careful about going quickly to the target as opposed to the rather showy binds and feints that he preferred.

They took their positions and saluted, Courfeyrac with an enthusiastic flourish and Enjolras with an air of mild amusement. Courfeyrac noticed, with a sudden spark of interest, that Enjolras was very handsome when he smiled, and that there appeared to be something capable of amusement behind a very stoic demeanor. After they had put on their masks and Enjolras had easily won the first point by disarming Courfeyrac entirely, Courfeyrac gave up on winning and sought merely to be entertaining. It took more skill to fail entertainingly than it did to win simply and, by dint of several binds and balestras that ended up being successful instead of entertaining, he managed to score two points against Enjolras.

The match was Enjolras's however; Courfeyrac's melodramatic, exaggerated lunge forward was a total failure and Enjolras neatly tapped Courfeyrac on the chest with the tip of his foil.

Enjolras pulled off his mask, his blond hair tousled around his face. In some confusion, he said, "You were not attempting to win."

"Merely to lose entertainingly," Courfeyrac said, panting a little and taking off his mask. "My God, where did you learn to fence like that? You're always straight on, never an unnecessary movement- I bet it comes naturally for you, you devil." This was said quite cheerfully and smilingly, which won an unexpected, but dazzling smile out of Enjolras.

"That is kind of you. You would fight equally well if your goal was to win."

"I suppose, but I would rather enjoy myself, which I often can't do after winning."

Enjolras raised a golden eyebrow.

"It's very hard to befriend the loser," Courfeyrac said comfortably, "unless it's me, since I take such _enjoyment _out of losing. This way, everyone's perfectly satisfied. Are you at the Sorbonne?"

"The Law School."

"What a coincidence! I am too, which is why I have never seen you before."

Enjolras did not so much smile as suppress it.

"Oh come now, you might as well give into the natural impulse," Courfeyrac replied, stretching like a contented housecat. "I am frequently assured that I am a terribly charming fellow, and if I am not, I am surrounded by very kind and indulgent people- one of which, I hope, you are. I can tell by your accent you're from the Loire. I know an excellent café overlooking Notre Dame that claims to sell Loire wines and does sell a very good _coq au vin, _regardless of the origins of its components. I don't suppose you would care to indulge me a little more and tell me how you have such an excellent disengage?"

"That," Enjolras said dryly, beginning to take off his equipment, "is a natural skill."

"How extraordinary," riposted Courfeyrac. "I am held to be quite good at binds."

"Very well," said Enjolras, a hint of amusement in his sky blue eyes, "another bout, then?"

Courfeyrac took Enjolras to the café, where Enjolras proved to have no nose for wines, but an extraordinary grasp of politics. From then on, Courfeyrac, who had originally turned Republican to annoy his parents, decided to stay Republican out of personal conviction. Enjolras put the case for a Republic forward with devastating simplicity and with an understated elegance which Courfeyrac often wished he could emulate, but generally only admired. As Courfeyrac, who collected interesting people as some men began collecting books, began collecting fellow republicans around him, he often wondered what he could possibly offer Enjolras in return for such sudden clarity of purpose. Courfeyrac had offered almost everything at his disposal, but Enjolras had no ear for music, no eye for art, no interest in literature and no understanding of clothes.

One day, in some desperation to be of material use instead of demonstrative but ineffective enthusiasm, Courfeyrac attempted to at least address the latter of these problems and dragged Enjolras towards his tailor.

"I worry about you," Courfeyrac said, linking arms with Enjolras, with a faux-sorrowful air. "It is the end of November and you are still wearing the same, thin tailcoat you wore at the end of August."

Enjolras looked at him in mute incomprehension.

Courfeyrac pulled a face. "_How _can you not see this is a serious problem? Look, there's a badly darned _tear _up your right sleeve. Allow me a moment to be hatefully Parisian and look upon your provincial ways with astonishment and incredulity."

"Granted," replied Enjolras.

Courfeyrac sighed heavily. "Have you ever seen snow, Enjolras? No? Then please _believe _me when I say this coat is far too thin for a Parisian winter. One is perpetually bombarded with grayness, winds and all sorts of wet weather. It is extremely unpleasant and, come January, I half expect to find you changing the gray sludge of the roads red from the consumption you caught from wearing such thin clothing in such forceful weather."

"That does not appear to be medically sound," Enjolras pointed out, a fact which Courfeyrac chose to ignore in lieu of dragging Enjolras into the shop and handing him over to several apprentices who began taking his measurements. Much to Courfeyrac's stunned disbelief, the only point Enjolras appeared to have gotten out of Courfeyrac's melodramatic rambling was that his sleeve was torn and ought to be fixed.

Courfeyrac was in agonies and leaned heavily and histrionically against the counter. The main tailor, Monsieur Dupont coughed politely and tapped his slender fingertips against the counter. "I beg your pardon, Monsieur de Courfeyrac—"

"Oooh, not the 'de' on top of everything else," lamented Courfeyrac.

"Beg pardon?"

Courfeyrac quite suddenly knew the role expected of him, and felt extremely amused to be playing it. He pulled a face and, dropping his voice to a stage whisper, said, "My dear, _dear _Monsieur Dupont, might I confide in you? What troubles I have suffered! Over there is a friend of mine from the Law School; we fence together. Yesterday, when we were riding back from the fencing school, the Duchesse de Langeais stopped her carriage, very politely, to inquire after my family's health when, overcome with... politeness, I am sure, asked my friend and I to a card party. My friend believes that his coat is suitable for the Faubourg Sainte-Germaine." He made a helpless gesture.

Monsieur Dupont took only a moment to draw a conclusion from Courfeyrac's evidence and gave but the tiniest cough to show his complete comprehension of the facts laid before him. "Of course, sir. Might I suggest a blue waistcoat, white trousers and a frock coat?"

"I am very grateful to you," said Courfeyrac, feigning relief.

"We are always glad to fulfill the needs of any of our patrons," Monsieur Dupont murmured, with the delicate little smile that said everything the two of them were pretending to be too discreet to mention. "It seems most likely to please- a _pale _blue, perhaps, to emphasize Monsieur Enjolras's eyes, with gold buttons?"

Courfeyrac glanced at Enjolras who was still being smilingly obdurate in wishing for repairs to his old tailcoat, and said, "Do you think…?"

"Perhaps sir," said Monsieur Dupont with a respectful little bow to Courfeyrac, "has accidentally ordered a waistcoat with the wrong measurements? It is so easy to get pattern cards mixed up, especially when there are two clients in the same room and the apprentice has been here but a fortnight."

"You have saved me," Courfeyrac exclaimed dramatically. "Please do so at once and charge it to my account. It is well worth it."

"I must agree sir," replied Monsieur Dupont, motioning to the apprentice.

Eventually, by dint of being extremely charming and faking a greater knowledge of fabric than he really possessed, Courfeyrac wore down Enjolras and got him to agree to a frock coat. Enjolras, having abandoned the outpost of 'it is still perfectly good' was forced into 'it might need more repairs than expected' and was last forced to wave the white flag and be escorted through, 'it would be best to get a new coat' and 'all coats are the same, as long as they fully cover one, does it matter if it is a tailcoat or a frockcoat'? Enjolras even seemed mildly amused by the whole process and put it out of his mind as soon as they left the shop.

As soon as the frockcoat arrived for Enjolras, Courfeyrac received an excellently made waist-coat. Courfeyrac bestowed it upon Enjolras as unceremoniously as possible (a mildly hysteric "I could _not _have gained an inch around the waist can I? It- it- they must have mixed up our pattern cards, they _must have, put it on it's your waistcoat, it can't be my waistcoat I did not gain an inch around the waist in three weeks that is just not possible._"). Enjolras had obligingly tried it on, and dutifully worn it around the Latin Quarter to prove that no, Courfeyrac had not mysteriously gotten fat, the tailors had just made a mistake. Courfeyrac was having difficulty keeping his smugness at acceptable levels and had to stop and drink several glasses of wine with a new friend (of sorts), Grantaire, until he was restored to equilibrium and could enter the backroom of the Café Musain without beaming at Enjolras's only fashionable ensemble.

Enjolras was perfectly ignorant as to Courfeyrac's sartorial masterpiece (Courfeyrac had also gotten Enjolras into a smartly tailored pair of white trousers by pretending Enjolras had ordered them all along, and letting Enjolras, who was very absent-minded about clothing, assume that he had merely forgotten he had gotten trousers as well). Enjolras was, in fact, sitting at a table, writing an editorial on Charles X's review of the National Guard, oblivious as to the various looks his waistcoat was rightly drawing.

"You are actually wearing color?" asked Bossuet, in fake astonishment. "It is surely the Judgment Day!"

"Or perhaps just laundry day," replied Combeferre, dryly. "Admittedly, that is a very fine waistcoat, Enjolras."

"It's Courfeyrac's," replied Enjolras, absently crossing out a few lines of an editorial.

"It is _not_," Courfeyrac, having had three glasses of wine, replied indignantly. "I certainly haven't gotten too fat for _any _of my clothing, I simply forced Enjolras to get a frock coat the same day I was getting a few waistcoats, and the tailor mixed up our pattern cards. It's his waistcoat as much as mine."

"I don't believe anyone was commenting on your waistline," observed Combeferre, which mollified Courfeyrac somewhat.

"It is very comfortable," Enjolras said, in a quelling tone.

Courfeyrac was suddenly quite happy to realize that, at last, he had given Enjolras something. He was so happy he prolonged his good humor by a judicious application of spirits and then, when everyone else had left, draped himself over Enjolras's shoulders and affectionately kissed his temple.

Enjolras, stacking his papers together, raised one golden eyebrow.

"I've finally given something back to you," said Courfeyrac, with a tipsy, delighted grin. "Now we're equal!"

Enjolras's lips twitched. "When weren't we?"

Courfeyrac considered this with more seriousness than it really deserved. "Before I got you to get a frock coat."

"Enlightening."

"Yes- see, I've given you something that can actually make you happy, as you more-or-less generally make me."

"There was no need of that," Enjolras said, with an almost gentle smile. "You do that as is. There is no need of a frock coat, when I am in possession of your friendship."

Very few things could have pleased Courfeyrac more and, depositing a drunken, but very well-intentioned kiss on Enjolras's golden hair, used his cuff to polish one of the gold buttons of Enjolras's waistcoat. When he had sobered up, Courfeyrac felt vaguely aware of a subtle shift in their friendship after that, a level of deep comfort that had not hitherto existed, an infinitesimal redrawing of boundaries that allowed Courfeyrac, when no one else was there, to place a kiss or two on Enjolras's golden hair or Enjolras's cheeks and once, one very cold day in January, when Enjolras had mildly pointed out that he had yet to die of consumption, his lips.

Though Enjolras continued to wear the frock coat, Courfeyrac did not often see the sky blue waistcoat. Once or twice he would catch a glimpse of it, when Enjolras had sufficiently relaxed to unbutton his coat, and Courfeyrac would feel overcome with an unnamable tenderness. It was a small glimpse at something wonderful, the same glimpse Courfeyrac saw when he caught Enjolras's eye. There was a hidden warmth, a willingness to laugh, that disappeared when someone else caught Enjolras's attention, and Courfeyrac very quietly treasured those glimpses. They were his, like the waistcoat, yet Enjolras's, and the pleasure was all the greater for being only theirs, hidden from the rest of the world.


End file.
